Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases could hit hard this summer

Zika hasn't been in the news as much these days, but that doesn't
mean that the virus has gone away.

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Like other mosquito-borne diseases, Zika - which can cause babies
to be born with neurological damage and microcephaly (a
particularly small head and underdeveloped brain) if a pregnant
woman is infected - became less of a concern as weather cooled.
Serious virus control and mosquito eradication efforts played a
role too.

"People are just going to have to accept that as part of the new
reality," Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's global
migration and quarantine division, told
STAT.

And as summer heats up and mosquito season begins again, the risk
for Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases like dengue,
chikungunya, and West Nile will rise also.

It's still unclear just how high the Zika risk will be this
summer. Some researchers have predicted that the number of
cases could explode, while others
point to past success controlling the virus in the US at
least as an indication that risk is not high.

But researchers do think that funding cuts could make it
impossible to conduct the necessary surveillance for the
mosquito-borne illness.

caption

The range for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can carry Zika, dengue, and chikungunya.

source

CDC

"Without active surveillance - I'm worried we missed [many cases
of] Zika last year and we'll miss Zika this year," Peter Hotez,
dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor
College of Medicine, in Houston,
told Kaiser Health News. "If you're a woman of reproductive
age, living on the Gulf Coast of the United States, or Arizona or
Southern California, and you're pregnant or might be pregnant -
you don't really know if Zika's in your area or not."

But even if most of the US outside those regions is unlikely to
see active transmission, officials still want people to be aware
that for pregnant women, a Zika infection is just as serious as
it has ever been. That means people need to be conscious of the
risk of travel to certain places and of the risk of sex with a
person that has been in those regions, since Zika can be sexually
transmitted. We're just beginning to understand the consequences
of the virus on brain development and it may be years before we
know just how long-lasting and severe the effects are.

Other mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus
also thrive in summer. While West Nile is rare, it can be
devastating. Most people have no symptoms if infected, but a tiny
fraction can experience a potentially fatal neurological
condition.

Mosquito-borne disease in general is expected to become a bigger
problem in a warming world, Durland
Fish, professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale School
of Public Health, told Business Insider.

There are studies showing that in warmer temperatures, mosquitoes
have enough time to go through an extra life cycle in northern
latitudes, Fish said.

"If they go through an extra life cycle, there's going to be more
mosquitoes," he said. "If they're transmitting a disease, the
incidence of the disease is going to be higher."

In addition to that, Fish says that six or seven new species of
mosquito have recently been introduced to Florida, two within the
past year. More and different types of mosquitoes increase the
chances that a new disease could appear.

It's not just climate, either. Environmental change and
globalization have also made it easier for diseases to spread,
something that is seen with mosquitoes and with
creatures like ticks, too. In general, says Fish, diseases
seem to be emerging at an increasing rate.

"The trend is pretty frightening," he says. "We didn't seem to
have these scares 30 or 40 years ago."